


Immortan's gifts

by Caducus, willowoak_walker



Category: Mad Max Fury road
Genre: Ace has these dreams, Gen, Magical Realism, probably, see...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4959655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caducus/pseuds/Caducus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoak_walker/pseuds/willowoak_walker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The old man, Ace, you know him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Boss turned the Rig sharply, diving off road without warning. Ace scrambled to the cab window. It was now. Internally, Ace thanked his mother’s God for the gift of his dreams.

“We takin’ you home, Boss?” She’d tried to leave three times he knew of. After they brought the Immortan’s chrome new wife in, Ace’d had to talk her out of leaving that very moment, without the crew. Better chance if she took a convoy. But it wasn’t a good time to go now, without warning or planning, and with a sandstorm blowing up.

The Boss snapped a glance at him. One of her hard ones, all vicious edge. The edge that had brought her up through the Pits, kept her from being tossed down to the Wretched.

“We’re heading East,” she said. Ace nodded, and passed the orders down the line. Morsov, riding the Elvis car this run, yelled at him in bafflement.

“Watch for sand-traps,” Ace yelled back. He’d dreamed that, too. Morsov nodded and leaned down to pass it on to the driver. He’d learned not to question. Ace knew things, everyone knew that. And if they weren’t always the same things that the Boss knew, well, Furiosa was blessed by the Immortan. Doubtless that was why the Ace had lived so long beyond the half-life. For his service.

Ace climbed back up behind the cab. No use bugging the Boss in this mood. Instead, he checked his rocket-launcher and scanned the horizon. Something was coming. He’d dreamed it.

It was almost five minutes before the “Head’s up!” came down the line. Ace looked the way they were pointing, over his shoulder, back toward the Citadel. Flares. Red and orange flares. The call for reinforcements, from Gastown and the Bullet Farm both.

Bad trouble. He leapt forward onto the cab again, beating the roof for the Boss’s attention. She slammed the sunroof open, and Ace yelled down to her.

“We’ve got vehicles from the Citadel. They’re firin’ flares, calling for reinforcements from Gastown and the Bullet Farm. What is this? Back-up? Decoy?” More quietly, so the rest of the crew couldn’t hear, he added. “Pursuit?”

The Boss’s shoulders were tense, and her eyes stayed down. “It’s a detour.” Ace nodded, and hung onto the cab. He scanned the horizon. He’d dreamed there were Hussars.

There were. “Buzzards, Buzzards right,” the Boss yelled, “Eyes right, eyes on!” Ace passed it down the line. He stared forward for a moment, checking on Morsov. Who was riding on the runner board, watching for sand traps. Good.

He swung down to the running board. “We chasing Buzzards, Boss?” Ace yelled, trying to make himself heard of the roars of approaching engines. “We could run ‘em into the others. Say that was the plan.”

“No,” the Boss yelled, “No turning back. We _fang_ it!”


	2. Chapter 2

The Boss sounded the horn and the Rig leapt ahead. The convoy thundered up, readying the guns, alert to every movement. The Boss’s crew might not seek a chrome death as piously as most, but they loved a fight. (And Core was nearing the end of her half-life, hardly able to sleep. She might well seek the Witness even knowing the Boss wanted the Rig full-crewed.)

The Elvis car pulled a hard right suddenly. Morsov and Elvis were both yelling.“Trap, trap!”

The Boss slammed the Rig into a turn after them, and the crew swayed. No sudden holes opened before them, though, so they must have dodged it. That part of Ace’s dream avoided.

He climbed back up to the cockpit, watching the battle. Boss said this was ‘Tactics,’ Ace’s job. The first Buzzard car took out a bike that got too close. Carol and Austeyr, both young and new. (Austeyr almost had a quarter-life instead of half.) It looked like they might have survived.

How long that would last was anyone's guess.

Core threw a lance into the car from the second bike, and roared off to the side to try another angle when that didn’t end it. Ace stood up and started yelling priorities to the lancers. The Buzzard with the tire-cutter first.

The rear car, Bolt and his gunner, Thirst, were harrying the rest of the Buzzard pack, and Morsov and Elvis were coming around the front of the rig to take the other flank.

Two of the Buzzard cars were lining up nicely for a bowler along the driver-side and Bolt had gotten out of the line of fire. Ace swung down to the runner board. “Ready!”, he yelled, and the Boss stomped the cruise control so she could lean out the window. They fired in the proper order- Ace’s launcher first, then the Boss’s crossbow. The car, knocked unsteady by the rocket, flipped right over as the bolt hit it. The car behind it drove right into it, and they burst.

Ace swung back up to the cockpit. Grill pointed him back. Something from the Buzzards drove straight on through the rubble of the cars Ace and the Boss had just shot down. Ace squinted at it through the smoke. Thirst was firing steadily, a distinctive noise, as Bolt pulled up beside the rig.

The Buzzards had a _scoop_ with a _buzz saw_. Ace cursed. The buzz saw was high enough to cut through the cab if they let it get that far. The flame-thrower on the back was lighting it up, weakening metal, loosening joints — maybe they’d get lucky and burn some cloth. Morsov rode up on the Rig-side of the damn machine, trying to drive it away so the gunners had a better shot. Core rode down the other side, looking for an opening to shove in a lance. She found it, and leapt from the bike, mouth already chromed.

“Witnessed,” the rest of the crew yelled as the explosion took her. The scoop rocked perilously on the rig supporting it, bolts loosened.

Ace raised his hands in the V-8 for a moment.


	3. Chapter 3

Ace took stock again. Both bikes gone, both cars still going. Thirst was frantically reloading. If the fool would just take care with his ammo to begin with, he wouldn’t have this problem.

Morzov, by Morzov magic, had swapped out of his car and was manning the Rig’s rear harpoon. Which put Axel at Elvis’ back. A good swap, now that the front car was engaged. The Nux car was coming up from driver-side. Back-up or threat? Or both, in order?

The scoop was coming up to the fore-cockpit, slipping unstable under lances but still trying. Bolt backed Thirst in in front of the scoop, slowing enough for Thirst to get a shot that punched through something important to the buzz saw — it swayed, flopped, and stopped spinning. And then the scoop drove right into Bolt’s car, flipping it end over end. Bolt and Thirst jumped free. Damned careless boys.

A silence drew Ace’s attention back to the rear. The harpoon’s unmanned, he thought for a frantic moment before Morzov stood up. Stood up and chromed up, and the shout ripped itself from Ace’s battered throat.

“Morzov!”

Morzov’s “Witness me!” was answer and no answer, and anything else Ace might say was drowned in the cry of “Witnesses!”

An explosion. The Buzzards’ last car fireballed. Ace raised the V-8, his little heresy, as the crew cried, “Witnessed!”

Nux’s lancer yelled “Mediocre, Morzov,” and Ace was going to kill that boy himself, slit his throat in the dark where no-one could see. But right now he had other problems.

The scoop shook under the force of the crew’s lances, and Ace got a good look at the damned thing. Nux’s lancer set the thing back a moment. It was too unstable for Ace — or most of the rest of the crew— to do anything useful on it. But, yes, there was Ratchet. Ace dragged him over and pointed. Ratchet nodded. He snagged a lancehead and leapt onto the scoop as it hitched itself under shotgun-side of the fore-cockpit.

“Hydraulics,” Ace yelled. “Hydraulics!” Ratchet scrabbled up onto the scoop’s arm and stabbed at the joint of it with his lancehead. The explosion rocked something inside the vehicle, finishing what Core had begun. The scoop toppled off its base, flinging Ratchet away. Ace peered after him. He might live.

That was an enormous sandstorm the Boss was driving straight into. Ace shook himself clear of shock and contemplation and started yelling orders. Front cockpit gone, five still on the rig— six counting him— and he couldn’t depend on room in the cab because it was cramped in the tanker…

They still had the Elvis car!

“Rocks, Nut, swing Carbine down into the Elvis car — he’ll fit.” They nodded, shoving off toward the crane. Rocks and Elvis had practiced this — though mostly with Morzov. “Trigger, Guard, hunker down in the rear cockpit, stay out of the way.” Ace himself swung down to ride the running-board and update the Boss.

“Four left up top,” he said, “Rocks, Nut, Trigger, and Guard. Elvis, Carbine, and Axel are in the Elvis car.” The Boss nodded. “We lost the fore-cockpit to the scoop--Boss?”

There was a wetness to her eyes that he hadn’t seen — since they’d lost Sprockett, likely, and then not till they were safe back.

“Boss?”

“Crew,” Nux yelled, “Get out of the way!” Ace turned, readying his rocket launcher, but a dream flashed through him, bright and desperate. Nux flipping the rig, furious and determined, mouth unchromed. Ace blinked, shaking his head violently to clear his vision, but the dream wouldn’t go. Explosions, shots, a bloody wasteland man, breeders — breeders? The War Rig in the now turned sharply, and Ace — Fell. Off.

He lay in the sand, stunned and shamed. Fallen off the Rig like a Pup too young to cling properly.


End file.
